Hacker News Reader

Comment by ythl | Hacker News Reader

I'm a religious person, but I don't think "demonic possession" has any place in any type of mental illness classification. Proving the existence of God is impossible. Proving the existence of demons and/or evil spirits is tantamount to proving the existence of God. Is it possible that this Doctor has witnessed demonic possession? Yes. But more likely, the person just has severe mental problems. There is no evidence of it other than anecdotal evidence, and it is unscientific to just throw your arms up and say "dang, that's hard to explain, must be an evil spirit".

View on HN

I agree diagnosing demonic possession would be unscientific.

However, the role and attitude of the author seems ultimately helpful to his patients. If he can screen the suffers of diagnosable and treatable mental illnesses from the hard to explain cases, he can get proper treatment for the former group. By not denying the existence of demonic possession, he remains in the good graces of religious leaders, who are likely to bring him patients who otherwise would receive no psychiatric evaluation.

However, leaving the later group in the hands of exorcists is questionably moral. But if honestly, as he claims, there are cases where "the symptoms in question have no conceivable medical cause" then I guess there is little else he can do.

Of course, writing a click-bait article about diagnosing demonic possession is unprofessional of both Gallagher and the Washington Post.

Why do you think it's unprofessional for the Washington Post to publish this article? I personally don't see anything particularly wrong with it so I'm curious as to what you find unprofessional about it.

Is "PostEverything" their op-ed section? I guess in that case it's not too egregious. But for a news article, it seems much too quick to accept the occult without giving any specific evidence.

> As I see it, the evidence for possession is like the evidence for George Washington’s crossing of the Delaware. In both cases, written historical accounts with numerous sound witnesses testify to their accuracy.

Thanks for the elaboration on your thinking - as far as I can tell, PostEverything is sort of an "anything-goes" op-ed section [0]. I fully agree that this would be a horrible "news" piece!

[0]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/05/27/...

> he remains in the good graces of religious leaders, who are likely to bring him patients who otherwise would receive no psychiatric evaluation.

That is a an interesting point. Far fetched idea, I can see maybe the author understanding and using this tactic in a way to get to patients who otherwise might be harmed. He will publicly proclaim his belief in such things, in order to be sure to get referals and calls from the clergy.

Wonder though how it gets ballanced by his colegues not accepting of what he does and basically end up ridiculed or ostracized by that community.

While I agree, I don't throw out the possibility of the unexplained. My mother worked for a Lester Sumerall for a brief period as a secretary (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lester_Sumrall). A small child (I don't recall the gender) was brought to him for an exorcism. The child threw itself against the walls. Screamed. Made other terrible noises. Generally violent. My mother told me she said aloud to no one in particular, "I think I'll get my lunch now" and left. She didn't watch the outcome. Could be a violent psychosis. Could be an actual demon. Either way, I agree: time to get a lunch.

Not time to make sure that child is protected from harm?

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-victoria-clim...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Victoria_Climbi%C3%A...

> In his diary, Manning described Climbié as Satan, and said that no matter how hard he hit her, she did not cry or show signs that she was hurt.

[...]

> From then on, Kouao kept Climbié away from hospitals, turning instead to churches. Kouao said to the pastors that she was the mother and that demons were inside Climbié. The pastor at the Mission Ensemble Pour Christ, Pascal Orome, offered prayers for Climbié to cast out the devil, and thought that her injuries were due to demonic possession.[4][51] On another occasion, Kouao took Climbié to a church run by the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, where the pastor, Alvaro Lima, suspected she was being abused, although he took no action. He said in the inquiry that Climbié told him that Satan had told her to burn herself. The pastor did not believe her, but he still believed that a person could be possessed.[52]

I agree that it's not science, but exorcism could still be therapy. If someone has a condition that has the same symptoms described for demonic possession, an exorcism might just cure it. Though antidepressants might also work.

After reading "A new way to be mad" and a bit of Ian Hacking's other work, I had wondered if demonic possession might be similar to "mad travel" and multiple personality disorder, diagnosable psychological conditions that seem to have disappeared.

Trying stuff randomly in the hopes of curing someone with no scientific basis has as much potential to do harm as to do good.

Just because, after a bunch of other crap, you do this one thing, and the patient suddenly gets better does not mean you caused their improvement. It also does not mean what you did won't have long term effects, which you cannot predict.

Imagine someone thinks they are possessed but really aren't. Won't an exorcism strengthen the belief that they can be possessed? And couldn't that lead to a stronger imaginary possession in the future? You might have just traded some temporary peace for a more severe lifelong problem, but shortsightedly just looking at the immediate effects and assumed you discovered something novel.

Giving form and substance to the delusions of a mentally ill person just seems rather ill-concieved.

Oh, another separation of church and state?

also known as the "God of the Gaps", or in this case, perhaps, the "Devil of the Gaps".

Reply on news.ycombinator.com